Friday, July 15, 2011

Fifty years ago, Amnesty International was founded with the mission to protect people wherever justice, fairness, freedom, and truth are denied. Today--Friday, July 15th, 2011-- the NGO launched its first online TV episode to celebrate its 50th anniversary and human rights campaigning. Amnesty TV mixes satirical comedy and short documentaries with outspoken opinion and real news. The TV episodes, which are created by a team of filmmakers, creative writers, and digital artists, will run every two weeks and each will focus on a different theme. The first episode, shown below, features an ironic attempt to obtain birthday signatures from international embassies, Jimmy Wales’ (the founder of Wikipedia) perspective on Internet freedom, and string of world news highlights--plus an instructional video on how to perform the perfect “Carpet Karaoke.” The result is a combination of laughs alongside a more serious message about human activism. The Amnesty TV channel, hosted online and on YouTube, will fuse techniques from popular entertainment with documentary features, campaign stunts, and satirical comedy. Check out the first episode below for a taste of what the series promises to offer in the future:

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